The Severed Cortex

Opportunities to listen to good music, or shall I say music that I think is good, are rare in central Illinois. There appears to be only one club in the area that books national acts. Coconut Louie's in Bloomington. At an hour away, it's the closest thing we have to a college town. I knew it was inevitable that I would wind up there at some point and that happened quickly when the Supersuckers announced a date there. I mean, what's an hours drive to see the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band? Or 2 1/2 hour drive for my friend Nancy, who picked me up at the house on the way to the show.
Coconut Louie's only books day of show events. There are no advance purchases. Not knowing what to expect and knowing the doors opened at 7:00, we decided to get there early, pound some beers and chow, and calmly stroll over to the door once the line started forming. Instead, we show up around 5:30, order a beer, and are told that the club is closing for an hour at 6:00. In the bartenders words: we have a really big show tonight. I love the Supersuckers, but calling them a really big show is a stretch. Maybe for Bloomington it is.
This meant we had to find some food and we stopped at a Ruby Tuesday's down the road. I don't think our waiter was prepared for us, but then again if you get Nancy and I bouncing the one liners off each other we can blindside anyone. The waiter never stood a chance. The best part was when he brought us our food. He leaned down over the table all secretive-like and said this:
I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but because you guys are so cool, if you want more fries I can totally get them for you. How we managed to not burst out laughing right there I'll never know. Once he was gone we contemplated hatching these plans

• Make a sign announcing good deals on cheap fries to other patrons in the restaurant.
• Extort the other restaurant patrons into buying our fries even if they wanted other sides instead. You don't want the baked potato. You want the fries. You know, this is a nice booth you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it. I'm just saying

Yes, I know. Snarky. We head back to the venue and there is already a line. And even though we were concerned and got in line immediately, it was all for naught as this is pretty much the extent of the rush for the show. The crowd filled in a little by the time the Supersuckers played but it never reached more than 125. We got a seat at the bar which, although at the opposite end from the stage, was still roughly only 30 feet away. While we slugged through the onslaught of three opening bands, we played, in Nancy's words, B-List Celebrity Look Alike. In my world I call it Separated at Birth. Same game though; spot a person and name a celebrity they look like. Nancy had several good ones including David Cross, Elvis Costello, and Joseph R. Gannascoli (the gay mafia guy on the Sopranos), but the best one was Paul Williams. You'd have to be a child of the 70's to even know who Paul Williams is. Either that or a fan of the Smokey and the Bandit movies. Paul Williams played Little Enos in Smokey and the Bandit and Nancy even managed to get the guy to sign the Supersuckers bill with the name Little Enos. Oh no she didn't. Oh yes she did. I countered her Elvis Costello with Ben Folds (she counter-countered that with a young Woody Allen), and I managed to find Moby, older Leif Garrett (with do-rag headband), and Gibby Haynes.

It turns out that our Gibby Haynes lookalike fronts the first band of the night, The Resinators. The Resinators have a chick on guitar who plays Donita Sparks/Suzy Gardner/L7 like leads and a fireplug of a guy with a very long beard on bass. Gibby lookalike screams out lyrics while a decent drummer metes out the beat. I actually liked these guys a little bit. They have a wall of sloppy, punk rock fuzz and they are somewhat energetic, especially the bass player. Gibby sucks at singing and that's ultimately the downfall of this band. It's good to see the punk rock ethos still alive though.
Next up was One Car Pileup, an alt-country outfit that look like frat boys. Not the really awful, pompous frat boys mind you. More like the partying, drinking frat boys who showed up at college their freshman year and decided to go pro with drinking instead of returning for their sophomore year. Or a repeat of their freshman classes. Still frat boys nonetheless. They pumped out covers that were house band worthy at best. On one hand they did a damn fine honky-tonk version of Folsom Prison Blues and then promptly followed that up with an absolutely butchered version of Skynyrd's Tuesday's Gone.
NIL8 was the next band and they took way too long to set up, dicking around for at least 15 minutes longer than they should have. NIL8 have been around for awhile and are actually from my new home town of Springfield. They've played in St. Louis before but I had never seen them. Glad I didn't catch them before. They are awful. The bartender said they played there a lot and that everyone liked them. I don't get it. They are kind of a dollar store version of Fishbone to me, and not many people really get Fishbone. I guess Bloomington is starved for musical entertainment. That's the only thing I can guess. I shouldn't knock them though. More power to NIL8 for doing their own thing. It just doesn't do anything for me despite the fact that Fishbone is one of my favorite bands.

And then there was the Supersuckers. We walk down to the 'stage', and I'm using big air quotes here, prior to the show. Nancy is standing a foot away from the mic stand and she tells me to come up there. I wanted to but there was an older lady (like grandma age) standing behind Nancy. No, I have no idea why she was at a Supersuckers show. If I walked up there, little old lady would have two 6 foot people to contend with. Nancy finally relented and stood with me, dead center three feet away from where Eddie would be singing instead. The crowd, although kind of small, was stoked to see the headliner. This is probably the biggest thing to hit Bloomington in years. One particularly ignorant drunk must have shouted It's Party Time fifty times while the sound check guy checked microphones and monitors. Yes, my drunken friend, it is party time. You already told me. Shortly thereafter Eddie Spaghetti sidled up center stage and for the first time I've seen him live, without a Gilley's t-shirt.
Hello Bloomington, Indiana Eddie said with a sly grin on his face. I laughed. It's not my home town. Why would I care if he got it wrong? Eddie made amends later and even laughed when someone in the crowd shouted Goodnight Cleveland. The Supersuckers ran through the big show, opening with Paid and Rock Your Ass. The latter song really got the crowd going. Grab a Drink a Chug a Lug. Have some sex and do some drugs. Not sure why something like that would make a drunken crowd scream with delight. They followed up with several rockers before switching gears and playing the alt country set. Not surprisingly the crowd was much more into this version of the Supersuckers, and I bet that many of them have worn out Must've Been High in their pickup trucks while cruising past the ever present corn fields. Somewhere in the middle they started losing the crowd, but Non Addictive Marijuana, Killer Weed, and a country rendition of Creepy Jackalope Eye brought everyone back. Small diatribe aside ... why is it that anytime someone mentions marijuana, everyone in the crowd goes wild, yet in the real world we have to pretend like it is some sort of evil thing? Just asking. The next 30 minutes rolled through a ton of rockers showcasing the guitar talent that is Mr. Rontrose Heathman and the damn fine drumming of Scott 'Zilla' Churilla. Both guys can flat out rock. Dan 'Thunder' Bolton is still my favorite, probably because it's the one role I could step in and take over should the Supersuckers need a replacement. I dream. The show ended with Pretty F*ck*d Up, always a crowd pleaser, and of course the peanutty brown BS encore. They put on a great rock and roll show as they always do for more than an hour and a half. The only knock I have is that they didn't play I'm a F*ck*ng Genius, one of my favorites off the new album. Afterwards, Eddie hung out at the merch stand greeting fans. Is Eddie Spaghetti not the greatest rock and roll star ever? Hell yes he is.
As is typical for a Supersuckers show, a few rowdy drunks in the crowd made it uncomfortable for some, especially security. Hey, it wouldn't be a Supersuckers show without these guys. Nancy's friend Seth got kicked out for the same behavior during the encore at Pop's the last time we saw them. Security here was the worst I've ever seen. A fat guy and a couple doofus(es) who couldn't find their ass with both hands. After someone bowled the crowd over and broke beer bottles, these one bullet Barney's scratched their heads about what to do. I watched with delight.

I drove back home, making the trip in less than 40 minutes. The following conversation occurred.
N: What's wrong? Don't you trust the radar detector?
M: Uh, I'm doing 90. How much faster do you want me to go?
I can personally verify that Nancy's sweet Subaru WRX STI goes way faster than 90.